Bobby Darin – Beyond the Sea (Tab)

Beyond the Sea is an anglicized version of Charles Trenet’s La Mer and regularly crops up in film and TV (most notably the prison kitchen scene in Goodfellas).

Intro: Starting off with some big strums to emulate the brass in the original.

Verse: Nothing too difficult to play in the verse, but there are a ton of chord changes to keep track of.

Bridge: This section has three key changes (to A, to C and returning to the original key of F). Each time it uses the trick of leading into the change with the V7 chord of the new key. So you have E7 at the end of bar 18, setting up the key of A. And G7 at the end of bar 24, leading in the key of C. Finally, you have C7 in bar 30 to lead back to the original key of F.

Solo: The solo is based on different inversions of the chords in the verse with a few melodic elements added. Plenty of room here for your own ideas.

From there, it’s back to the verse and finishing with a simple chromatic lick.

Links

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More 50s tabs and chords
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Watch on YouTube

Tracklist
4stringboy – Rain
Jake Shimabukuro – Hualalai ft. Brother Noland – YouTube
Pomaika’i – Puamana
KimaMusic – The First Punch
Dingus Khan – My New Hat
CNN Mikey – Talk About It
Kenta Ebara – Somehow, Somehow
Moon Berries & Zaza – You’re A Sweet Little Headache
CTrietsch – Black or White
Jon’s Ukulele – Haste to the Wedding

Stephen Sanchez – Until I Found You (Tab)

In a rare case of being almost up to date, here’s a tab of Stephen Sanchez’s retro ballad and TikTok smash Until I Found You.

Intro: The retro touches start in the intro with a classic IV to minor iv chord change (C to Cm) in this case. Which shows up in a million Beatles songs as well as Creep and Wake Me Up When September Ends.

Verse: The verse starts with the unmistakeable interval from the Crazy melody. The verse melody has a very lazy, slurred timing to it. I’ve kept some of that but I have straightened it up a little.

Chorus: The chorus is more straight forward in terms of timing. The slide up to the seventh fret is the only bump.

Solo: A very simple solo. Just bashing out the chords and doing a little slide. But doing that accurately and quickly is challenging.

Links

Buy the original
More 2020s tabs and chords
Uke Hunt Patreon

Old Crow Medicine Show – Wagon Wheel (Tab)

Old Crow Medicine Show’s Wagon Wheel is pretty much ubiquitous wherever ukuleles are strummed. Or any instrument is strummed. Even Kesha has had a go at it.

Part of the reason it’s so popular is its long gestation taking in Curtis Jone’s Roll Me Mama and Bob Dylan’s mumbled demo Rock Me Mama before OCMS’s Ketch Secor gave the song its current form. It’s not a coincidence that a song passing through so many hands would shape it into something so widely loved. Which is why the current music copyright insanity is so harmful.

Links

Buy the original
Wagon Wheel chords
More folk tabs and chords
Uke Hunt Patreon

Ukulelists have been raising money to support those affected by the Maui wildfire with Eddie Vedder and Jack Johnson auctioning off ukes, and Taimane playing a benefit. Plus, Jake Shimabukuro is donating profits from his Hana Hou Festival to the fund. You can buy tickets to the online stream the event here.

On Video

– Marvin Tevaga performs Lahaina Luna after losing his home in the wildfire.
– Dick Van Dyke has started learning the ukulele at 97.
– Paragliding with a ukulele.
– The art of the protest song is not dead.

Patreon

A massive thanks to all Uke Hunt’s Patreon backers for keeping the site up and running this month. And double thanks go to these legendary patrons of the arts:

– AnonymousSynonymous8888
– Arthur Foley
– BigHempin
– Colleen Petticrew
– Dennis Boutsikaris
– Elizabeth Beardsley
– Ivo
– Jameson Gagnepain
– Jeff K
– Jon Kenniston
– Kelby Green
– Leia-lee Doran
– Lisa Johnson
– Loreena Humbert
– Mary
– Michael Lufkin
– Monika Kolodziejczyk
– Moses Kamai
– Nevylle Carroll
– Pat Weikle
– Pauline LeBlanc
– Robert
– Thorsten Neff
– Tina Knight
– Virtual Performing Arts Academy

If you join Patreon at the Concert level or higher, you’ll get access to all previous exclusive tabs including August’s: Buffalo Springfield’s For What It’s Worth

Brandi Carlile – You and Me on the Rock (Tab)

Here’s my take on Brandi Carlile’s Joni Mitchell influenced and very catchy You and Me on the Rock.

Intro: The Mitchell influence kicks in right away with a Big Yellow Taxi-esque strumming riff.

Verse: And continues with a wordy verse. It’s tricky to hit every note in the melody. So I’ve taken a few liberties. Don’t stress to much about hitting every note and string exactly.

Chorus: Things calm down a bit in the chorus. And I move from strumming only to include more picking. Even with the picking I’m doing a bit of “flick up” motion so I stroke the next string along. Making the note softer but still supporting the main melody.

The chorus ends with a bar of 2/4 but it flows naturally.

Bridge: There’s a short bluesy lick leading into the bridge introducing the more minor feel with the addition of Eb (the first chord outside the bog-standard I-IV-V in the rest of the song).

Outro: The outro is cut down from the original so it’s just the second half of the chorus.

Links

Buy the original
More folk tabs and chords
Uke Hunt Patreon

Eminem – The Real Slim Shady

Franz Ferdinand – Michael

Janelle Monae – Champagne Shit

The Bee Gees – Stayin’ Alive

Average White Band – Pick Up the Pieces

BLACKPINK – The Girls

Willie Nelson – Stardust (Tabs)

A tab of Willie Nelson’s version of Stardust (written by Hoagy Carmichael) for everyone who likes a bit of Willie. In thanks for his contributions to ukeing as father of Amy Nelson of Folk Uke and grandfather of Raelyn Nelson.

There are loads of less common chords in the song. And a fair amount of hopping around the fretboard. But the tempo is very slow and there’s plenty of room for changing the phrasing of the melody. So this one is fairly straightforward to play.

Links

Buy the Willie Nelson version
More jazz tabs and chords
Uke Hunt Patreon

Watch on YouTube

Tracklist
SeattleUke – How High The Moon
Norwegian Uke – Hone A Ka Wai
Dot Allison and Zoë Bestel – Bleached By The Sun
BoyWithUke – Trauma
Adrian Demain – By The Time I Get To Phoenix
Benny Chong and Byron Yasui – Just The Way You Are
Reneé Dominique – everybody loves somebody
Tommy Emmanuel ft. Feng E – While My Guitar Gently Weeps

The Band – The Weight (Tab)

A version of The Weight in tribute to Robbie Robertson. Robertson appeared on the Playing for Change version alongside some uke from Taimane.

Intro: Usually, you’re free to play around with the intro. Not in this case. Robertson’s intro is iconic and doing anything other than playing it as close to the original as possible is sacrilege.

Verses: The melody in the verses is a little fiddly, but it’s the third verse that’s most challenging. There’s an extra campanella bit in bar 37 (“Waitin’ on Judgement Day”) and a trickier ending to the verse.

Chorus: I haven’t tried to cram in all the vocal lines in the chorus in order to keep things clear. Most obviously, the arrangement doesn’t include the overlapping “you put the load…” lines (bar 46).

Links

Buy the original
More 60s tabs and chords
Uke Hunt Patreon